Some newbie questions

[Travis K. Jansen]

1. It seems there's a general consensus that unless you're doing something with fruit or other additives, most people don't do secondary fermentation anymore mostly due to oxidation and contamination concerns. I've also read in Jim Palmer's book that leaving beer on the trub for too long can produce off-flavors. So, how long is too long? If I have a particularly long aging beer, say a Belgian Quad or something where I just want to leave it mellow, does that warrant a secondary in that case, or is strict primary still ok? Would love to hear your thoughts on this
2. Regarding carbonation, I have 3 kegs right now, hoping to get a 4th soon for my keezer. Up until this point I've only ever had one keg active. I have one CO2 tank that I use to force carbonate the keg and then lower to serving pressure and leave it there, but I'm about to finish my keezer in the upcoming weeks which means I'll have a 4-way distributor on it. How do you guys force carb, and manage serving pressures? Aside from having a second tank, I'm guessing whenever you need to force carb, you just disconnect it from the distributor and force carb the keg, leaving your serving kegs to wait for the FC to complete before being able to pour beer from them again.

Thanks much!

 

[myndflyte]

1. If you're going to age for longer than a month, it's probably good to transfer it to a secondary. That's usually my cut off.

2. I have the same setup you are describing. One option is to get a regulator that allows you to control the pressure to each keg, which is obviously pricey. What I do is when I hook a new keg up, I usually burst carb at 30 psi for 24 hours and then turn it down to serving pressure. So I just turn off the air at the distributor to the kegs that are already carbed. Turn up the air for 24 hours and then when it's back down, open the distributor back on to the rest of the kegs. There is most likely enough air in the other kegs that you can pull a few glasses and it'll still be ok.

One option might be to get a regulator like this one: https://www.morebeer.com/products/co2-regulator-taprite-gauge.html and then use one of the lines to your distributor at serving pressure and then the at a higher pressure to carb kegs. Again, makes it a little pricier but depends on how much control you want.

 

[TBC27]

+2 to both answers above!

 

[Travis K. Jansen]

Perfect answers, thanks guys. Do you guys use a glass carboy for secondary, or plastic bucket?

 

[myndflyte]

Perfect answers, thanks guys. Do you guys use a glass carboy for secondary, or plastic bucket?

I use a glass carboy then. The thought is that plastic can be permeable to O2 and if you are doing extended aging, you're more susceptible to oxidation with little CO2 being made by the beer. Plus sitting so long, the plastic can absorb some of that stuff and you may get off flavors the next time you use it.

If you're just doing a secondary to add fruit where fermentation will kick back on again, then I could see using a plastic bucket if that's all you got on hand.

 

[beernutz]

I never use secondaries now and haven't for the last 25 years. I don't see any advantage to using them other than if I needed my primary fermenter, a 60L Speidel, for another brew and that hasn't ever happened.

 

[Travis K. Jansen]

I never use secondaries now and haven't for the last 25 years. I don't see any advantage to using them other than if I needed my primary fermenter, a 60L Speidel, for another brew and that hasn't ever happened.

Do you ever long-age your brews?

 

[beernutz]

Do you ever long-age your brews?

Sure. I either leave it in the primary which I've done for a couple months with no ill effect or if I want to go longer than that I'll transfer it to kegs.

 

[Travis K. Jansen]

Nice. Good to know it can work that way too.

 

[dmtaylor]

I do secondary sometimes to help limit the amount of dregs in bottles. If kegging, the dregs will be blown out after a couple of pints, but in the bottles (my package of choice) it obviously is permanent. I can't give much more advice on kegging, as I don't.

Based on my experience as pretty much the laziest brewer on the planet, yeast autolysis begins at about 6-8 weeks in primary at the earliest. Get the beer out of primary before then and you'll be just fine every time, I guarantee.

 

[soccerdad]

John Palmer could never have pitched for the Orioles and Jim Palmer probably doesn't brew beer.

But regardless.

If you secondary the quad (I would), it is one of the few times I would vote for a glass carboy.

A cheap and dirty method of carbing keg 4 is to shut off the glss to the other 3 and turn the regulator up to 30 psi for a day. Then turn the regulator back to 10 or 12 and switch all the lines on. It doesn't even giving up beer for a day. The others will pouring using stored gas.

 

[chickypad]

I do long term aging, lagering, etc. in kegs but I have a lot of them. Just some terminology - it's all force carbing if you are using a CO2 source under pressure (as opposed to naturally carbing with sugar). You can force carb with a single regulator and manifold by set and forget method - i.e. just hook it up to the regular equilibrium/serving pressure and leave it. If you want to burst carb at higher than equilibrium pressure then you need a second regulator or you need to turn off the pressure to the other kegs as mentioned above.

 

[Travis K. Jansen]

I do long term aging, lagering, etc. in kegs but I have a lot of them. Just some terminology - it's all force carbing if you are using a CO2 source under pressure (as opposed to naturally carbing with sugar). You can force carb with a single regulator and manifold by set and forget method - i.e. just hook it up to the regular equilibrium/serving pressure and leave it. If you want to burst carb at higher than equilibrium pressure then you need a second regulator or you need to turn off the pressure to the other kegs as mentioned above.

All makes sense. Thanks folks. Seems like I have a few options. A follow up. How long does beer last in a keg? Do I have to man up and drink it before it goes bad or can I nurse it somewhat?

 

[Vintage Iron]

Thanks for making this post Travis. I'm a newbie as well (pre-first brew) and you've asked many of the questions I've just been pondering. Not only is this already a great resource, but there are a great group of guys and gals here to help us along!

 

[soccerdad]

All makes sense. Thanks folks. Seems like I have a few options. A follow up. How long does beer last in a keg? Do I have to man up and drink it before it goes bad or can I nurse it somewhat?

3 days. Maybe 4.

;-) kidding

I had an oatmeal stout condition in the keg for about 8 months once. And it spent another month getting drained. As long as gas is on it (in it) it can last a good long time.

 

[Travis K. Jansen]

3 days. Maybe 4.

;-) kidding

I had an oatmeal stout condition in the keg for about 8 months once. And it spent another month getting drained. As long as gas is on it (in it) it can last a good long time.

One last question. I have like 25 different beers I want to brew. Can someone make more time in the day? I'm browsing northern Brewer and drooling.

 

[dmtaylor]

One last question. I have like 25 different beers I want to brew. Can someone make more time in the day? I'm browsing northern Brewer and drooling.

Make smaller batches and bottle instead of keg. For a while I was making 1.67-gallon batches. Now I make 2 gallons. There is no reason to always make 5 gallons every time unless you really love kegging that much. However you can also buy smaller kegs too.

 

[Travis K. Jansen]

Make smaller batches and bottle instead of keg. For a while I was making 1.67-gallon batches. Now I make 2 gallons. There is no reason to always make 5 gallons every time unless you really love kegging that much. However you can also buy smaller kegs too.

Do you just halve extract batches to do that?

 

[dmtaylor]

Do you just halve extract batches to do that?

Yes you can easily do that.

 

[Travis K. Jansen]

Unrelated, but still a newbie question... Tell me a little bit about Brew in a bag versus the three-tier system. Can any All Grain recipe be done Brew in a bag style? Is it a good way to get into all-grain Brewing without having to buy a ton of equipment?

 

[dmtaylor]

Yes and yes.

 

[RM-MN]

Unrelated, but still a newbie question... Tell me a little bit about Brew in a bag versus the three-tier system. Can any All Grain recipe be done Brew in a bag style? Is it a good way to get into all-grain Brewing without having to buy a ton of equipment?

BIAB is just a different way to separate the grains from the wort at the end of the mash so it can be used for any style beer. To go from extract to all grain via BIAB I had to buy a bag. I also chose to buy a mill since the nearest brew supply store with a mill was 120 miles away but even with that I kept the cost to start at under $30. I also was required to do half size batches (2 1/2 gallons) due to the size of my pot. Eventually I bought a bigger pot and made several batches before I went back to the smaller batches again. I use a 5 gallon paint strainer bag which fits my pot perfectly and bought a Corona style mill which works very well for BIAB as I can mill the grains really fine with it. That fine milling got me a very high efficiency and without knowing what I was getting into, I was forced to drink some Imperial versions of the beer because I accidentally hit 7 to 8% ABV until I learned to reduce the base malt.

 

[Travis K. Jansen]

BIAB is just a different way to separate the grains from the wort at the end of the mash so it can be used for any style beer. To go from extract to all grain via BIAB I had to buy a bag. I also chose to buy a mill since the nearest brew supply store with a mill was 120 miles away but even with that I kept the cost to start at under $30. I also was required to do half size batches (2 1/2 gallons) due to the size of my pot. Eventually I bought a bigger pot and made several batches before I went back to the smaller batches again. I use a 5 gallon paint strainer bag which fits my pot perfectly and bought a Corona style mill which works very well for BIAB as I can mill the grains really fine with it. That fine milling got me a very high efficiency and without knowing what I was getting into, I was forced to drink some Imperial versions of the beer because I accidentally hit 7 to 8% ABV until I learned to reduce the base malt.

That's awesome! I know I'll eventually want to get there and BIAB seems to be a really nice method that offers up pretty good efficiency. I think for me I'd just need a bag, potentially a mill, and a 10 gallon pot which I'm ok with purchasing because I can do full-boil extract brews with it is well.

That takes a bit of worry and mystery out of the progression to AGB. My biggest thing I need to learn next is malt theory and how things all play together to build recipes and tweak them. I'm in no rush...moving on to Partial-Mashes soon...

 

[RM-MN]

That's awesome! I know I'll eventually want to get there and BIAB seems to be a really nice method that offers up pretty good efficiency. I think for me I'd just need a bag, potentially a mill, and a 10 gallon pot which I'm ok with purchasing because I can do full-boil extract brews with it is well.

That takes a bit of worry and mystery out of the progression to AGB. My biggest thing I need to learn next is malt theory and how things all play together to build recipes and tweak them. I'm in no rush...moving on to Partial-Mashes soon...

To me a partial mash means that at least part of the wort came from extract so go ahead and do a partial mash where you use only one tablespoon of extract and the rest of the wort comes from the grain. The next batch you can just skip the extract,

Your 10 gallon pot is a decent size for a 5 gallon batch. Make sure you have a way to heat it. Measure it for the bag to fit, perhaps even a custom made one from one of the sponsers, Wilserbrewer. His bags are tougher than the paint strainer bags.

I like to take a recipe from the database here and then do a small tweak, sometimes because I lack one of the ingredients and need to find a substitute. https://www.homebrewtalk.com/forum/#homebrewtalk-com-recipe-database.54

 

[Travis K. Jansen]

To me a partial mash means that at least part of the wort came from extract so go ahead and do a partial mash where you use only one tablespoon of extract and the rest of the wort comes from the grain. The next batch you can just skip the extract, [emoji14]

Your 10 gallon pot is a decent size for a 5 gallon batch. Make sure you have a way to heat it. Measure it for the bag to fit, perhaps even a custom made one from one of the sponsers, Wilserbrewer. His bags are tougher than the paint strainer bags.

I like to take a recipe from the database here and then do a small tweak, sometimes because I lack one of the ingredients and need to find a substitute. https://www.homebrewtalk.com/forum/#homebrewtalk-com-recipe-database.54

I have a burner that I use so heating it isn't a problem. I get your point about partial mashes, I am talking more about a few recipes I have found , particularly the cuvee Des trolls clone that are partial mash. Something where I figure out volumes and maybe sparge a little.

I'll check out those custom bags, thanks!

 

[JulietKilo]

Everything I brew spends some time in secondary. I need those buckets back! Weizens a couple weeks, Belgians maybe months. I like PET carboys for secondaries.

 

[Travis K. Jansen]

Everything I brew spends some time in secondary. I need those buckets back! Weizens a couple weeks, Belgians maybe months. I like PET carboys for secondaries.

Thanks. I'm riding the majority train and not bothering unless it's an absurdly long beer.

 

[JulietKilo]

Certainly no need for a weizen. I just like clarifying them, for entirely aesthetic reasons. Can't go wrong either way.

 

[Travis K. Jansen]

Certainly no need for a weizen. I just like clarifying them, for entirely aesthetic reasons. Can't go wrong either way.

You betcha man it sounds like there are so many different ways to skin the cat everybody gets to formulate their own process. I plan on trying gelatin as well for clarifying to see how that works.

 

[JulietKilo]

What weizen yeast are you using?

 

[Travis K. Jansen]

What weizen yeast are you using?

I think it was the Omega weizen yeast. Can't remember exact number

 

[JulietKilo]

I hear Omega does a nice weizen. I'm drinking a wy3068 right now, and about to tap into a Lellmand Munich Classic Wheat Beer.

 

[Travis K. Jansen]

I hear Omega does a nice weizen. I'm drinking a wy3068 right now, and about to tap into a Lellmand Munich Classic Wheat Beer.

I can vouch. This hefe turned out amazing. Little low on gravity but I will improve that next batch.